


Bingo Fic: "Met with Vast Underreaction"

by taylor_tut



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fainting, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sick Character, Sick Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Sickfic, Strained Friendships, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27053998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: A prompt from my tumblr for Jon: "met with vast underreaction." Jon gets sick and Tim thinks he's being dramatic. But he comes back to check on him, anyway.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 158





	Bingo Fic: "Met with Vast Underreaction"

Jon isn’t sure what he’s waiting for. Martin is out today, still sick with whatever hell virus Sasha had decided to spread through the Institute before she took a week off to recover. 

Well, that’s not fair. It wasn’t Sasha’s fault. Perhaps Tim’s, a little, for hovering over her from the moment she complained of a headache (she rarely complained, these days, since the worms. Jon supposes she feels guilty to do so, while he and Tim both still have so much pain, while Martin still has regular panic attacks, while Jon is so… distant, paranoid, jumpy,  _ lonely _ . He wishes he could talk to her about it, but when he tries, he always freezes). She and Tim had already recovered and returned. Martin is on the mend, would probably be back in the next day or two. 

So, that leaves him here, alone in his office with no one coming to check on him. He’d hoped that perhaps someone might have a question for him at some point through the day, but he knows that’s a long shot, since Tim has long since given up doing any real work and Sasha has always been better suited to the work of an Archivist than Jon himself. There’s nothing she could need from him, nothing Tim could want from him. 

He shuts his eyes, his head resting on his folded arms over his desk, and hopes to feel better after a bit of rest. 

Jon decidedly does not feel better after his rest. He’s not sure how long he sleeps for, but it’s enough, combined with the fever and the fact that he’s been too dizzy to get up and get water, to leave him with a pounding headache from the dehydration and fever. 

God, he knows he shouldn’t be here. But it hadn’t been so bad yesterday morning, just some aches and fatigue, which was sort of his MO, anyway. He’d been able to fight through it. And he’d slept here. He hadn’t meant to, but one moment, he was working up the motivation to gather his things and go, and the next, he was waking up to the sound of his subordinates bustling around outside his office door. 

Hm. Perhaps he’d been more ill yesterday than he’d originally thought. 

It takes a moment to make out the numbers on the digital clock hanging on his wall, blurry and swirling as they are, but when he does, he realizes that it’s 4:45 p.m. Tim and Sasha are getting ready to go home, if they haven’t already. Briefly, he debates just letting them leave and sorting it out in the morning. Martin might be in, and Martin would certainly drop by his office when he arrives. 

On the other hand, he might be out another day. And Jon truly doesn’t think he can wait that long. 

Using all his limited strength, Jon pushes himself to his feet. He has to take a moment to equilibrate, head spinning so fiercely that he almost hits the ground, but he manages to stay on his feet and to the hallway, where he catches Tim and Sasha on their way to punch their time cards. It’s timing so lucky that Jon can’t believe it’s really happened. 

“Wait,” Jon calls, and they turn around. He can't think clearly or see around the spots in his vision or hear over the sound of his own heartbeat. 

“What is it?” Tim demands. “I've already clocked out. I'm not doing more work.”

Jon shakes his head. “I'm--I'm not feeling very well,” he says, realizing as it comes out of his mouth that it sounds stupid, inadequate. 

They stare for a moment, sure that there must be more, but he can’t find the words to elaborate.

“Go home, Jon,” Tim finally says before he turns to leave. He wants to; Jon wants to go home, wants to tell Tim that he’s not quite sure he can make it by himself and isn’t sure where his phone is to call a cab, that he’s honestly at the point where he’s considering going to a clinic because he Cannot think straight. 

By the time any of those thoughts have fought their way through the mental fog, Tim is gone, Sasha is gone, and Jon is alone. 

He hardly makes it halfway back to his office before he collapses. 

Tim won’t examine the decision later. Each time the question, “why did you go back for your jacket even though it was too mild a night to need it” bubbles up, he’ll force it away like the cringey high school memories that like to rear their heads as he tries to fall asleep. He walks Sasha to the tube and tells her to text him when she’s safely home, then turns around and heads back to the Institute. He doesn’t want to do it. He knows Jon doesn’t want him to do it, as guarded and cold as he’s been.

There’d just been something… off. And when it comes to Jon, “off” usually ends in disaster. He’d seemed confused and agitated in a way that didn’t feel like his typical paranoia. Jon’s normal nervous energy was twitchy, tweakey, like he’d had a few too many cups of coffee or maybe something harder, on a bad day. In the hallway, he’d been dull, tired, seeming to struggle to stay awake. And as much as Tim didn’t want it to, it had worried some part of him that clung to the belief that Jon is in there, somewhere, untouched by all their shared trauma, this intolerable suspicion wrapped around him like a cocoon to keep him safe. 

Tim still isn’t sure if he’d be strong enough to forgive him even if that were the case. 

He walks down the hall toward his desk, promising himself that if Jon isn’t somewhere along the way, he’ll not go searching. 

As soon as he rounds the corner, Tim finds him, curled up on the floor and shivering. He rushes forward, dropping to his knees beside him immediately. 

“Jon?” he calls, shaking his shoulder lightly and wincing at the heat radiating off it. Jon doesn’t stir, not for a moment, and Tim curses and fumbles with his phone, not even sure who he’s intending to call. “Damn it, Jon. Wake up.” 

It takes a minute, but Jon complies, blinking back to consciousness slowly and dazedly and shoving his hands away. “Ngh, stop.” 

“Don’t whine,” Tim scolds. “You seriously passed out here?” 

While he looks as though he might genuinely not remember, his shrug comes off as cagey. “Jesus. You might have said something.” 

Jon blinks. “I did. Said I--felt bad.” 

“Perhaps something a bit more specific, next time?” 

“And you’d have stayed?” 

The question is innocuous in intention but it stings all the same, mostly because Tim doesn’t quite know the answer. 

Although. He did come back. He presses his hand to Jon’s forehead and sighs.

“‘Not feeling very well’ doesn’t begin to cover this,” he decides to say instead. “I think you need A&E.” 

Jon hates that idea but he's too out of it to argue. 

Tim drops him off and Jon takes a cab home when he’s released hours later.


End file.
